The Money Brief #24 - 28 September 2026

Four weeks on Wednesday, John Healey stands up to deliver his first Budget. This week told you how hard that speech is going to be. The government spent £327 million a day on debt interest this summer, the bond market pushed the cost of borrowing to a near two-decade high, three Bank of England policymakers edged towards a rate rise, and, into all of that, the Prime Minister announced a scheme to get first-time buyers into new homes with a 2.5% deposit. There is a lot of money being promised and not much to promise it with. Grab your Monday coffee. Let me walk you through the sums.

Every story in the papers this week, from a first-time buyer scheme to a rumoured tax on capital gains, is a piece of the same puzzle: the Chancellor has commitments to fund on 28 October and the room to fund them is shrinking. Here is the state of the puzzle, in the government's own numbers.

What the public finances said on Tuesday

That last number is the one to hold onto. Interest is money that buys nothing: no nurses, no roads, no tax cuts. And it is rising for a reason you already know from these pages: the yield on gilts (the interest rate the government pays when it borrows) sets the cost of every new pound the Treasury raises, and roughly a quarter of the debt is index-linked, so it costs more when inflation is higher. Both moved the wrong way this week.

What the bond market did

The move started in America. Strong US data, another oil spike and a Federal Reserve official saying more rate rises "may be necessary" sent the US 10-year borrowing rate to 5.13%, its highest since 2007, and the 30-year to its highest since 2004. Markets now put the odds of an October Fed rise at around 70%. That is the American story and we will leave it there, except for the part that crossed the Atlantic: UK gilt yields followed, with the 10-year touching 5.4%, and the Bank of England did nothing to calm it. On Thursday deputy governors Sarah Breeden and Clare Lombardelli both said they were moving closer to backing a rate rise; on Friday Governor Andrew Bailey said that "it's going to get harder to maintain that stance the longer we have high energy prices," the stance being the hold. Markets now price roughly an 80% chance of a Bank Rate rise on 5 November, according to Reuters.

Two weeks ago the Bank slowed its bond sales and yields fell. This week the world moved past that. The 10-year gilt closed the week at 5.35%, up from 5.28%.

Why this is the Budget story

Put the two halves together. Higher gilt yields mean higher debt interest, which eats the Chancellor's room before he has spent a penny. That is why the rumours you are reading are almost all about raising money (capital gains tax, national insurance on investment income, the pension tax-free lump sum) and the one big spending announcement, Your First Home, is designed so that housebuilders pay towards it. It is also why the personal allowance idea, which would cost about £20 billion a year, comes attached to a suggestion of how to pay for it. The rest of this edition takes each piece in turn and runs the numbers on what it would mean for you.

What it means for you. Nothing is decided until 28 October, and the Treasury's line all week has been that it "does not routinely comment on tax speculation." But the direction is clear enough to plan around: borrowing is dearer than forecast, the Bank is closer to raising than cutting, and the Budget has to close a gap. If you were waiting for a cut to Bank Rate before fixing anything, the market has moved the other way.

Sources: Office for National Statistics, Public sector finances August 2026 (22 September 2026); Reuters (24 and 25 September 2026); Trading Economics (25 September 2026); HM Treasury via Sky News (24 September 2026).

Fixed rates did not get the calm week the Bank's bond-sale change promised. With gilts back up and a November rise now the market's base case, lenders had no reason to cut.

The mechanism is the one we have covered in #17, #22 and #23: fixes are priced off swap rates, swaps follow gilts, gilts went up. We will not re-run it. What changed this week is the odds: two weeks ago the debate was whether the Bank would hold all year; now the market thinks a November rise is more likely than not. Lenders price the market, not the Bank, and the market moved.

On Friday the Prime Minister announced Your First Home, a scheme to be confirmed in the Budget. The published shape so far:

If that sounds familiar, it is. Help to Buy (2013 to 2023) used a 5% deposit, a 20% loan (40% in London), the same £600,000 cap and five interest-free years. It helped 387,000 buyers, 328,000 of them first-timers, and it was also criticised for lifting new-build prices and housebuilder profits. The Housing Secretary says the new version will "build on the lessons learned." The Conservatives' Katie Lam called it "a colossal admission of failure" and said the developer levy "risks pushing up the price of new homes." The Home Builders Federation said a well-designed scheme "can make a meaningful difference." All three are on the record, and all three can be true at once.

Run the numbers on a £300,000 new build

Illustrative. Rates are this week's averages, not offers; the equity loan terms are not yet published, so the table assumes they mirror Help to Buy.

Two things the table does not show. First, the equity loan is a share of the home, not a fixed sum: sell that £300,000 home for £330,000 and you repay £66,000, not £60,000; sell it for £270,000 and you repay £54,000. Second, if the fee after the interest-free years mirrors Help to Buy (1.75% of the loan, rising with inflation), that is roughly £88 a month from year six on a £60,000 loan, on top of the mortgage. The monthly saving is real; so is the string attached.

What it means for you. If you are a first-time buyer, the scheme is not open yet and the details that matter most (income caps, local price caps, the fee, the start date) come on 28 October. MoneyHelper's guide to shared equity explains the general mechanics. If you are coming off a fix, the market has moved against a cut; brokers typically let you secure an offer and switch if a better one appears before completion.

Sources: Moneyfacts (18 September 2026); Rightmove (21 September 2026); Prime Minister's Office via PA Media (26 September 2026); Home Builders Federation (26 September 2026); Bank of England (17 September 2026).

Our regular Spotlight: the big markets across four timeframes, because the timeframe you choose decides the story you tell. Figures are as at Friday's close. "This year" means since the first trading day of January; "5 years" is rolling, the same week five years earlier. Oil and the pound keep their seats.

*Bitcoin at time of writing, Sunday morning; it trades through the weekend. Gilt moves are in percentage points (pp), not percent. Euro row is the inverse of the euro-pound rate.

Three lines deserve a sentence. Gold has now dropped 6.7% in a month and is below where it started the year. A metal that pays no interest looks less attractive every time markets add a rate rise, and this month they added several; it is still up 143% on five years, which is the perspective line. Oil is back above $104, up a fifth in a month, on the Iran blockade and a US talks process that kept flickering on and off all week; every rate-setter quoted above named it. And the FTSE slipped to 10,695, down 1.7% on the month, with banks and miners holding it up while energy stocks gave back some of their oil gains. The S&P managed a rise, helped by a Friday rally when oil eased. The pound sits near a three-month low against the dollar, which is what a Fed that is raising faster than the Bank does to sterling.

The pension angle: the tax-free lump sum rumour

Among the Budget rumours is one that touches almost everyone with a pension. Currently you can take 25% of your pension pot tax-free from age 55 (57 from 2028), up to a cap of £268,275. Speculation reported by CityAM is that the cap could be cut or the tax-free element trimmed, raising up to £2 billion a year. Royal London, AJ Bell and PensionBee have all publicly warned against a change. Nothing has been announced, and the same rumour circulated before the last two Budgets without becoming policy. We flag it because the last time it circulated, the FCA and pension firms reported people taking lump sums early on the strength of a rumour, which can have tax consequences of its own. MoneyHelper's Pension Wise service is free and covers exactly this question.

What it means for you. As always with the Spotlight: a picture, not a nudge, and past performance guarantees nothing. On the pension rumour, the only fact is the current rule; everything else is 28 October.

Sources: Trading Economics (25 September 2026); CityAM (25 August 2026); HMRC pension rules (2026/27).

Two weeks ago the US Senate knocked back the crypto rulebook and Bitcoin fell $5,000 in a day. It has since recovered all of it and more, and this week set two markers.

The "why" is the same one as last week, with the sign reversed: money went risk-on early in the week, and Bitcoin, which has traded like a high-beta version of the stock market all year, went with it. The analysts CoinDesk quotes are notably unexcited: Nansen's Nicolai Sondergaard said "it wouldn't be surprising to see some drawback in the coming weeks," and Bitget's Lacie Zhang called Fed rate rises "a key counterweight." The 2012 comparison, which was followed by a 2,000% run, is one the article itself says "cannot become a reasonable expectation." We agree, and we would add that the tapering daily flows are the number to watch, not the weekly total.

The rest of the board

Trading Economics crypto board, Sunday 27 September 2026.

Bitcoin alone is worth about $1.7 trillion. Every coin in the table is up on the week and the month and still down on the year. Same as last week: which one you quote is a choice.

The BlackRock name and a 24% day

The other crypto headline of the week was Ondo, a token most readers will not have heard of, which rose 24% in a day to about $0.52 after Ondo Finance launched "tokenised portfolios" built on BlackRock's published model strategies. Tokenisation means putting a share of a conventional investment (a bond fund, say) onto a blockchain so it can be bought and traded like a coin. It is one of the more credible long-term uses of the technology, which is why a BlackRock name moves prices. Three things to keep it in proportion: BlackRock has not invested in Ondo, it has licensed its model allocations; the products are not available to UK or US investors; and a 24% day is a description of a $2.5 billion token, not of anything you can buy on the high street.

The UK date that matters: from Tuesday 30 September, crypto firms can begin applying to the FCA for authorisation under the new regime. That is the start of a process, not the end; firms that are not eventually authorised will have to stop serving UK customers.

Sources: CoinDesk (23 September 2026); SoSoValue via The Block (26 September 2026); Trading Economics (27 September 2026); Finbold (24 September 2026); FCA.

Housing: the Rightmove numbers

Asking prices have risen 0.7% in September to £367,440, the first monthly rise since May, though still 0.8% lower than a year ago. The more telling figures are underneath:

Read alongside ‘Your First Home’: a scheme that adds buyers for new builds lands in a market where the problem for sellers of existing homes is a shortage of buyers, not a shortage of homes. Whether it lifts new-build prices, as its critics say, or lifts chains, as its supporters say, is the question the Budget detail may help to answer.

Shops and jobs, briefly

Retail sales volumes rose 0.5% in August, reversing July's fall, with online, department stores and warm-weather sales doing the work; the three months to August were 0.9% up on the three before (ONS). It is a better number than the jobs data we covered last week, and the Bank will weigh both.

Energy and fuel

The £1,723 cap starts on Thursday. Oil at $104 does not change that figure, but it does feed the January forecast we tabled last week (9% to 25% higher depending on whose you read), and it is why petrol, not food, is doing the work in the inflation numbers. Ofgem confirms January's cap on 25 November.

The Budget rumour table

Here is every serious measure in circulation, what it is estimated to raise (or cost), and where it stands. Estimates are the ones reported; we have named the estimator each time because they disagree, sometimes by a lot. Remember at this point most of these are speculation until officially confirmed.

 What it means for you. Nothing on that table is law. What you can do before 28 October is know which lines touch you: the allowance if you earn, CGT if you hold shares or a second property, the lump sum if you are near retirement, the first-home scheme if you rent and want to stop. Then read the actual document, not the rumours. If money is tight now, the help is free and not a last resort: StepChange and Citizens Advice for debt, MoneyHelper for the numbers, the Priority Services Register if you are vulnerable and worried about winter energy.

Sources: Rightmove House Price Index (21 September 2026); Office for National Statistics, Retail sales August 2026 (18 September 2026); Ofgem (26 August 2026); CityAM (25 August 2026); MoneyWeek (21 September 2026); Sky News (24 September 2026); NIESR.

The most repeated Budget rumour of the week joins two taxes most people have never had to think about together. Here is how each works, and what the numbers would look like if the rumour became policy.

The personal allowance is the amount you can earn each year before income tax starts. It is £12,570, it has been frozen there since 2021, and it is due to stay frozen until 2030/31. Freezing it while wages rise is why more people pay tax each year without a single rate changing; that is the "stealth tax" you have read about. Above it, you pay 20% up to £50,270, 40% up to £125,140, and 45% beyond. (The allowance is withdrawn gradually once income passes £100,000.)

The proposal: raise it by £3,000 to £15,570. The idea came from Dale Vince, the Ecotricity founder and Labour donor, with modelling by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), and the reporting says the Prime Minister and Chancellor are "considering" it. The Treasury will not comment.

What £3,000 more allowance is worth

TMB calculations on 2026/27 HMRC bands. NIESR's own modelling puts the bottom fifth of earners about £600 a year better off, at a cost of about £20 billion a year.

Capital gains tax (CGT) is the tax on the profit when you sell something that has gone up in value: shares outside an ISA or pension, a second home, a business. Your main home is exempt. The first £3,000 of gains each year is tax-free (it was £12,300 as recently as 2022). Above that, the rate is 18% if you are a basic-rate taxpayer and 24% if you pay higher rate, for both shares and property. Income tax rates, by comparison, are 20%, 40% and 45%. That gap is what "aligning" means closing.

It raised £22.2 billion in 2025/26, a record, though it usually swings between £12 billion and £17 billion because people choose when to sell. The Centre for the Analysis of Taxation estimates alignment would raise about £14 billion a year. Others doubt it: because sellers can wait, higher rates can delay sales and reduce the take, which is why Andy Haldane, the Bank's former chief economist, warned against treating CGT as a "cash cow." Both views are on the table; neither is settled.

Run the numbers: two people, one deal

The two ideas are being floated as a pair: raise the allowance, fund it from CGT. So here is what the pair would mean for two people who each sell some shares held outside an ISA this year for a £10,000 profit (£7,000 taxable after the £3,000 allowance). One earns £35,000, a basic-rate taxpayer; one earns £75,000, higher rate.

Our arithmetic on 2026/27 bands. Assumes the higher-rate threshold rises with the allowance, as it does mechanically (allowance plus the £37,700 basic band).

Three things the table shows. The allowance rise is worth more in cash to the higher earner, because the £3,000 comes off the top of their income at 40% rather than 20%; that is how allowances work and it is why some economists prefer cutting the basic rate instead. The CGT rise only bites when you sell, so in a year with no sale, both are simply better off. And for the higher-rate earner the pair is close to a wash even at a modest gain, and turns negative for larger ones: at a £20,000 gain the extra CGT would be £2,720, well past the £1,200 income tax saving, which is who the measure is really aimed at.

Read across and you see the shape of the deal: about £600 a year to a basic-rate earner, paid for by higher-rate taxpayers who sell assets, with the pension-income and property rumours as alternatives if that does not add up. Whether it is fair is a political question and not ours. Whether it adds up is an arithmetical one, and on the estimates above, £14 billion does not cover £20 billion, which is why more than one rumour is running at once.

Why it matters to you. Two things are worth knowing now, whatever happens. The gains allowance is £3,000 this tax year and ISAs and pensions sit outside CGT entirely; that is the current rule, not a tip. And if you hold something with a large gain, a rumour is not a reason to act; the Budget document is. And timing is not guaranteed either way: some measures start the next tax year in April, but the last CGT rate rise, in October 2024, took effect on Budget day itself, so an assumption that there will be time afterwards is as risky as acting on a rumour. We will run the actual numbers on 28 October.

Sources: HMRC (2026/27 rates and allowances); NIESR via Sky News (24 September 2026); MoneyWeek (21 September 2026); CityAM (25 August 2026); Office for Budget Responsibility.

That is your five minutes on the week the Budget started to take shape before anyone stood up to deliver it.

If someone you know is renting and thinking about buying, forward them the mortgage section. The scheme is not open yet, but the questions to ask on 28 October are all in there.

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Ellis

themoneybrief.co.uk

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